A week after the release of iOS 5.1 beta 3 the biggest question that seems to be getting asked repeatedly is one that we have become accustomed to ever since the release of iOS 5, back in October. Yes, you guessed it – is the battery life any better yet?
We have been talking about battery life in iOS quite a bit since the issue first reared its ugly head, and we’ve discovered that it isn’t just an iPhone 4S issue, but rather something Apple changed in iOS 5. Since then the company has issued a full update in iOS 5.0.1 and a series of iOS 5.1 betas, but has the latest improved things any? Can we expect to get back to iOS 4.x-levels of battery life?
Well, no, not really…
iDB Oliver been using the beta 3 release of iOS 5.1 with his iPhone 4S for a week now, and in his testing at least, not much has changed by the way of battery life.
What he mean by that is that the iPhone still has its good and its bad days, just as it has since he started with these betas from iOS 5.0 and onwards.
Some days Oliver find the handset still buzzing along nicely at the end of the day, with 20% or more left in the tank.
At first Oliver thought that the key differentiator here was the use of 3G or Wi-Fi, with the latter giving better results when it comes to battery longevity. That has recently been disproved, at least in my case. That said, there is clearly something going on from day to day that is causing an iPhone with the same usage patterns to vary wildly in its use of power.
At this point, iOS 5.1 in its third beta, Oliver find hisself wondering if this is as good as it is going to get. Has Apple thrown its dice as many times as it can, and we are going to just have to get used to where we are now – unpredictable battery drain?
There is also the unusual drain that occurs when the handset is idle. Last night, for example, I left my iPhone off-charge overnight with 25% of its battery remaining.Oliver awoke this morning to a battery with just 2% left in it. A few emails had been received, but that is it. Where did the 23% go? Yes, he know these things aren’t always accurate, but that is a considerable drop for an idle handset by anyone’s measure.
While not causing any great headaches, it is an indisputable fact that my previous iPhone 4 would routinely last a couple of days on a full charge before iOS 5 began to drain a lot of power around the time Apple released the GM version of its new OS. After that, the issues began.
I’d love to know what Apple added during that release, but we’ll probably never know.
How is your battery life now the dust has settled on the iPhone 4S release?
[Via: idownloadblog]
he beggarly by that is that the iPhone still has its acceptable and its bad days, just as it has back he started with these betas from iOS 5.0 and onwards.
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ReplyDeleteApple's navigation of the battery drain issue has been amazing. Instead oif fixing the problem for those palgued by it they are now touting the new features of 5.1. Apparently Apple hasn't figured out how to fix, or they would, and they're now throwing up smoke screens about new features instead of rectifying the problem. - Great Marketing, poor development. I wouldn't trust the next iOS. Apple's problem solving is a ploy of misdirection and marketing.
ReplyDeleteI've had an iPhone 4S now for around 6 weeks and upgraded to the iOS 5.0.1 as soon as it was released hoping that, as everyone did, the battery issue would be resolved. The drainage appeared to improve slightly but nothing to write home about. I started looking into ways of curtailing the drain in settings and discovered that settings for SKYPE e.g. if set to auto logon, for some reason, has an effect even though no-one had contacted me, strange. If I set the phone to airplane mode, I lose 1% over an 8 hour period, not much use as a phone but I still get to use the alarm which won't function if the phone is powered off!! I can still though get through a day with moderate use and still get home with more than 50% life left. Maybe I am just lucky. I won't be using the beta 3, I'm jailbroke now and don't want the hassle. Guess I'm stuck then. Thanks for the info on the beta 3 and and now my reason for staying put.
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